The United States wanted to discredit the Cuban example, Ms. La Riva pointed out during a special broadcast by Cubavisión Internacional, Radio Habana Cuba and Prensa Latina News Agency on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the 3447 Executive Order formalizing the unilateral blockade.

Ms. La Riva explained the blockade is a policy that has been tightened over the years. This is what happened in 1996 as then President William Clinton signed the Helms-Burton Act, which codified it and strengthened its extraterritorial scope.

I will never forget my visits to Cuba in the early 1990s during the special period, she recalled.

Since then she has admired the resistance and struggle of the Cuban people and their loyalty to the Revolution and its leader Fidel Castro, as well as the capacity to survive amid such difficult times.

Ms. La Riva claimed the United States has not accomplished its goals of destroying the social project in Cuba, let alone to understand the decision of an entire people to champion its Revolution.

She reiterated that many people in the United States bet on the normalization of bilateral relations with Cuba as well as the end of the blockade. In addition, she requested the return of the Guantánamo Bay territory to Cuba.

US blockade against Cuba was made official by President John F. Kennedy on February 3, 1962, but it is a policy that began much earlier, Ambassador Abelardo Moreno stated in a previous speech.

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